How Does This Bloody Work?
by Violet Waller
Summary: The Potters are living as muggles on Dumbledore's advice. See James Potter meet muggle Vacuum cleaner. See James Potter get confused. ONE-SHOT.


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How Do This Bloody Thing Work?

There he was. Appearing as an island in a sea of foam and bubble wrap, James Potter was staring intently down the end of a vacuum hose. He looked quite frazzled with his skewed glasses and messy hair.

Firstly, he was completely useless at housework. And when it came down to doing things the muggle way, he was absolute rubbish. Now, he found himself facing housework without magic.

Yet, that has never deterred our young hero as of yet. The unimaginably cocky wizard hardly desired to bruise his ego by appearing as a mere mortal this early in his marriage in front of his wife, Lily. He wanted to let her down slowly that he too could suffer afflictions of the flesh.

Presently, he seemed on the losing end of a battle with his sanity. He had been trying since afternoon to turn the vacuum on. He managed to wrap himself up in the cord, and couldn't untangle himself for an exasperating hour. After tea, he even tried sticking some attachment nails in the wall socket, since they seemed the perfect size. That turned out to be one of his more brilliant ideas.

When Lily came home that day, she was in for quite a shock. They lived in the village of Godric's Hollow, which had been a favorite of James' ever since he was at Hogwarts. A quiet muggle town boasting of its own train station, Godric's Hollow seemed a perfectly safe place for James and Lily's home. Ever since James had openly dueled with a Death Eater, a follower of Lord Voldemort, a few months ago, he had been in extreme danger.

Albus Dumbledore suggested a cottage in an unassuming neighborhood in Godric's Hollow to protect them. James was more than thrilled at the suggestion, since he would live in the same village as Bowman Wright, the inventor of the golden snitch. James Potter's parents had left him with a considerable sum in his vault at Gringotts. He and Lily could live comfortably for many years in the cottage without worry. They had lived there ever since they had been married two months ago. They had just left Hogwarts, and James had proposed to Lily near the Hogwarts Lake.

Their professors were toasting them that night and the students drank themselves dizzy in the common room. People were settling a seven-year-old bet and some left that evening a bit poorer.

Now, Lily was coming home from working at the Auror Office in the Ministry of Magic. She had a small job in an even smaller cubicle which was nothing too exciting considering the times. James worked a few floors above hers as a Floo Network Regulator, which quietly helped pass along useful information to other members of the Order of the Phoenix, to which he and Lily recently joined. They had discovered the Order in their seventh year when Voldemort was gaining new heights of power. However, Professor Dumbledore forbade them and a few of their friends from joining as they were still in school.

Naturally, as the train barely left Hogwarts for Platform Nine and Three Quarters at the end of that term, James Potter, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Lily Evans, Sirius Black, Frank Longbottom, Alice Prewett, and Dorcas Meadowes had become the newest members of the secretive Order.

It had been ages since then, and things had gotten a bit more complicated than it had been at Hogwarts. James found it a bit harder to meet up with his friends, as they didn't live in the bed next to his. Lily found it harder to talk with her friends, as she lived so far away, and it became more and more dangerous to communicate magically.

Upon Lily's insistence, they had decided to live as muggles while they were at Godric's Hollow. James found it rather endearing that Lily worried about his safety, considering she was plotting to hex him the year before last. Presently, they seemed to be living the lives of any newlywed couple, excluding the fact that they were hunted by dangerous wizards and witches and were quite handy with a wand themselves. Nevertheless, we must go back to James and his housework.

It was evening by now and Lily was returning home from another hectic day at work. She walked up the cobblestone walkway and to the door with a brass no. 7 in front.

Lily's long auburn hair had melting flecks of snow as she entered the house warmed by the crackling birch in the fireplace. She took off her scarf and hung it on a hook.

"James, are you home?" She asked as she took off her wet boots.

"I'm in here! You have to see this!" James' voice came high pitched and quite excited.

As she made her way to the kitchen, where he usually sequestered after coming home from work, she heard a manic giggle coming from the living room. She turned round and opened a door to the side.

She found him, with his old nimbus One Thousand which he had used his first and second year of Hogwarts, sweeping the floor under the sofa.

"James! What on earth are you doing?" Lily cried upon seeing the horrific mess in the room. An open cardboard box with a trail of packing peanuts lay on a side table, and the floor was covered in bubble wrap. The vacuum cleaner was on top of the sofa. She turned to James, who was waiting to see her like an impatient child with a crayon drawing for his dad.

"Look at my broom! If you move it back and forth, you can collect the dust from here and move it there! Although, I see no point in moving it back and forth, though it does make a pretty pile, doesn't it?" He said, admiring the heap of dust and rubbish.

"Isn't it amazing?" He said expecting to astound her with his discovery. His hazel eyes were twinkling.

She looked him square in the eye, and grabbed the broom from his hand. A smile was playing on the corner of her lips.

"James, you've gone mad! Is the work at the Ministry getting to you?" She asked, her eyes brimming with concern.

James looked scandalized.

"I'll have you know, I spent the whole evening trying to dissect this . . . this . . . thing . . . and I finally figured that it doesn't work at all. I had to resort to an old muggle trick they used in the middle ages. They used brooms, you see." He said matter-of-factly. He pointed to his nimbus. He wouldn't dare use his latest model to sweep up his floors. He hadn't even shown it to Lily. Sirius and he had spotted it in Diagon Alley, and James had bought it immediately. Being intelligent as he was, he had it delivered to Sirius' place in London so that Lily wouldn't think he wasn't wasting well earned knuts. So far, he had managed to keep it a secret but severe restrictions had been placed on levitating objects in a level one area, which meant an area with a high concentration of muggles.

Lily's eyes were laughing. "Did you try turning it on at the plug?"

James said hotly, "Of course! What do you think I'm daft or something?"

He held up the end of the hose and peered in once more to see if a gnome had gotten in.

Lily walked to the other side of the room, found the end of the tangled wires, and plugged it into the socket. A terrible sucking noise came from James' side of the room. Lily turned round quickly, to find that half of James' sleeve was inside the hose, and he was screaming bloody murder. She turned it off immediately. James breathing heavily, dropped the vacuum dramatically on the floor. They never spoke about vacuums or plugs ever since.

James had even allowed the incident to push him off the deep end. He had dragged all the magical instruments from the attic, and all of his quidditch supplies from the cupboard under the stairs. He kept muttering, "that's it" while turning off all the light switches and replacing them with magical light. Lily ran after him, but she knew it was useless. They couldn't manage to keep up the pretense. Their muggle neighbors already suspected them of being strange.

For all the muggle items James kept chucking into the basement, he had grown rather fond of the television and decided to keep it. He had first discovered it when he visited Lily's home during Hogwarts, and couldn't get off the sofa.

A few hours later, a fully magical house was back in place and an exhausted but satiated James sat in the kitchen sipping tea, Lily, who was peeling potatoes with the help of her willow wand, looked up. She wouldn't admit it, but she was glad they were using magic again.

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End file.
